Download How marketing is changing to reach millennial moms

How marketing is changing
to reach millennial moms
SUSAN KRASHINSKY - MARKETING REPORTER
TORONTO — The Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, Apr. 17
Peanut butter may have a long shelf life, but
the people who sell it are worried it’s getting
old.
On Monday, Kraft Canada will launch a new
advertising campaign and a total rebranding of
one of its most recognizable brands. Its
peanut butter is a top-performing product for
Kraft, but an all-important advertising target is
not buying as much. Heads of households
who are millennials – broadly defined as those
born between 1980 and 1994 – are buying 13
per cent less peanut butter in Canada than the
average consumer. (Kraft’s research does not
show a correlation between those slightly
lower sales and concerns about peanut allergies, which makes sense, since allergies had
been a factor long before the latest generation
started having kids.)
For a few years now, marketers have recognized the importance of speaking to this
younger cohort of digitally-savvy people. But
now that they are starting to have kids of their
own, this consumer segment is posing a new
challenge for companies that have to figure out
how to communicate with a new generation of
moms.
The new Kraft campaign is an attempt to do
just that.
The ad shows a mother giving a teddy bear to
her baby; as the baby grows, she takes her
bear with her everywhere (in a nod to the
target viewer, at around 12 years old, the girl is
dressed in 90s-era rolled-up jean shorts and
canvas shoes). Eventually, she becomes a
mother herself (with bangs, and wearing
skinny jeans) and her baby gets a bear as well.
Ellie Goulding, a singer whose voice will be
recognizable for younger viewers, provides the
soundtrack.
Kraft has made the teddy bears far more
central to the package design of the peanut
butter, and it’s a strategic move: The ad purposefully includes very few shots of the product itself or the brand name. It is focused
much more on the emotional story.
“Companies that will win in the future are those
that humanize their brands,” Leisha Roche,
senior director of marketing for grocery brands
at Kraft Canada, said as she showed off a
real-life model of the teddy bear at Kraft headquarters in Toronto this week. “You can’t just
push your brand any more.”
That’s because these new moms are consuming media in a digital environment more than
ever before. They grew up with the Internet.
According to research from communications
firm Weber Shandwick, they have 3.4 social
media accounts on average compared to 2.6
for moms in general. That means brands aren’t
competing against other ads on TV; to be
heard, their messages need to be compelling
enough to compete in a broader digital environment where people are posting readable,
watchable, human content all the time.
Marketers have always tried to reach mothers
– according to some statistics, they control up
to 85 per cent of household purchasing decisions. But these younger moms are not just
consuming media in a different way; they also
believe advertisers are fundamentally out of
touch.
In fact, 42 per cent of millennial moms believe
that “most advertising and marketing is not
geared to women like me,” compared to 36
per cent of all moms who said so, according
to a survey from communications firm Weber
Shandwick, which spoke to 2,000 women in
North America.
“What we’ve heard from millennial
moms is that the bar of creativity
in marketing to them is too low,”
said Katherine Wintsch, founder
and chief executive officer of The
Mom Complex, a Richmond,
Va.-based consulting firm that
helps clients including Kellogg’s,
Unilever and Wal-Mart market to
mothers more effectively. “It’s typically a mom in a cardigan talking
to the camera about her cleaning
products. It’s tutorial, and boring,
and they react against that.”
Plenty of mothers of all ages are smart enough
to resent boring advertising. But the difference
with millennial moms is that they are young,
creative-minded, and most of all, they are vocal
about their opinions. And they are savvier about
using an online platform to amplify their opinions than any generation that came before
them.
“They’re more likely to ignore
things that don’t have an impact.
They’re more likely to skip the ad,”
Ms. Wintsch said. “Getting their
attention is much harder.”
Kraft is not the only marketer recognizing the
importance of changing that. This past holiday
shopping season, Fisher-Price increased its
spending on digital advertising by 50 per cent in
the U.S., saying that younger moms (born in the
’80s or early ’90s) have become a greater focus
for its marketing.
The Mattel Inc. toy brand’s campaign, “Share
the Joy,” included three online videos. But
plenty of advertisers have warmed up to the
promise of online videos: the difference here
was that Fisher-Price offered an incentive (a $5
coupon) for visiting the brand website where the
videos were hosted, and another coupon if they
shared a video with their friends.
That’s an important strategy with this demographic. According to research firm Mintel, 26
per cent of moms aged 18 to 34 said they
would be more likely to buy something if they
had seen friends recommend it online.
Like Kraft, Fisher-Price was trying to push its
brand with a relatable tone that was a departure from its past advertising.
“Unlike previous Fisher-Price advertising that
focused on product features, the ‘Share the
Joy’ campaign introduced a more playful tone
and manner we thought would resonate better
with the millennial mom,” said Geoff Walker,
executive vice-president of Fisher-Price global
brands.
The ads were effective: In the U.S., the videos
were viewed roughly three million times and 1.6
million coupons were downloaded.
“They’re the first generation to grow up using
technology, and it informs everything they do,”
said Diane Ridgway-Cross, executive
vice-president at Montreal-based advertising
firm Marketel, which has just launched a division called Marketelle, focused on marketing to
women.
Advertising will not just have to get better; it
needs to get real. The research shows a growing demand for depictions of mothers with
realistic, messy lives. Kelly Ripa breezing
through her immaculate kitchen wearing heels
and maintaining perfect hair while balancing a
career and a family? That’s not aspirational, it’s
infuriating.
Tide detergent has done a great job showing
families’ lives as messy and chaotic; and that
resonates with moms who have given up
aspiring to perfection. (A recent ad featuring a
father caring for his three daughters is a particular winner, Ms. Ridgway-Cross said, because
women – not just men – are sick of seeing
dads depicted as incompetent morons.)
In the second phase of the peanut butter
campaign this summer, Kraft is hiring anthropologists to explore the phenomenon of
distracted living – and is working on social
events designed to bring people closer together.
And it will be watching the results of the campaign closely; the company will be shifting its
advertising across many of its brands to better
speak to millennial moms.
“Moms can make the connection
between an emotional message
and a brand, without you beating
them over the head,” Ms. Wintsch
said. “In research they tell us, ‘I
want to laugh, I want to feel
something.’”